Putin vows to mobilize against the terrorists. I wonder if he will someday tell us who they are, and if he and George W. will notice that they are facing the same foe. From AP:
BESLAN, Russia – Wails of mourning echoed through the streets of this southern Russian town on Sunday, and the region’s top police officer reportedly resigned in the wake of the school hostage-taking that left more than 380 people dead — nearly half of them children.
A shaken President Vladimir Putin went on national television Saturday to make a rare and candid admission of Russian weakness in the face of an “all-out war” by terrorists. He said Russians must mobilize against terrorism and promised wide-ranging reforms to toughen security forces and purge corruption.
“We showed weakness, and weak people are beaten,” he said in a speech aimed at addressing the grief, shock and anger felt by many after a string of terrorist attacks that have killed some 480 people in the past two weeks, apparently in connection with the war in Chechnya.
Dozens of men dug graves in a football field-sized tract next to the Beslan cemetery on Sunday morning, while surveyors across the road marked out new plots with wooden stakes and string. Coffin lids stood outside the entrances to apartment buildings, along with wooden planks bearing the names of victims who were to be buried in funerals beginning later Sunday. Wailing could be heard from courtyards where families were preparing ritual meals.
May the victims of this jihad find rest in a place where there is no pain, no grief, no sighing, but everlasting life.